Winter Bird Feeding

As it’s as good as winter now, we’ve filled up the bird feeders.  (They are way up in the tree, and our cats can’t get anywhere near them.)  Gav and I love to watch and listen to them from the front deck in the late afternoon winter sun.  Especially if there is a glass of wine involved! 

The Tuis have really been enjoying the nectar feeder, and for the past couple of days we’ve had 4 of them playing around and acting like teenagers in the tree with the nectar feeder.  Sat down at lunch today, and made sure I had the camera with the 300mm lens.  I’m not a bird photographer, and these wouldn’t stack up in any natural history bird competition, but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, for my purposes.  

I’ve been trying my hand at a bit of just straight drawing for the last few weeks, as I’d like to improve my non-existent skill in that area, and I might use these pics as reference photos to practice from.  I do have a great book that I found on observing and drawing birds “The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds” by John Muir Laws.  Excellent step by step instructions on all parts of birds, and a great lesson in bird anatomy as well.